Sunday, November 14, 2010

We spent a weekend in Mendocino, by which I actually mean we spent an afternoon in Mendocino, a dinner in Fort Bragg, and the rest of the weekend in Elk, which is a few miles south of Mendocino.

Elk is tiny. Wikipedia claims Elk has a population of 208, though I could have sworn I saw a street sign claiming 412. Either way, small. Sigrid's parents stayed in Elk earlier this year, and we stayed at the same bed and breakfast they stayed at, the Elk Cove Inn.

I think this B&B may be the largest thing in Elk, at least in terms of buildings. Here's the main house, where we had two lovely home-cooked buffet breakfasts.

There's a path behind the B&B that leads to the ocean. Here's a shot of the B&B from the path to the beach. We stayed in the cottage that's the second building from the right.

The cottage is the building on the right in this pic.

The room featured a cow jumping over a moon. Anders was very concerned about the stick that the poor cow is stuck on.

There's a gazebo that offers a great view of the ocean, and, in the evening, of the setting sun.

A few of the paths on the grounds are lined with wine bottles.

Anders thought the bottles were fascinating.

It turns out that, with a bit of care, you can walk on them.

We went down to the beach several times during our stay, so Anders got pretty comfortable with the path.

He wasn't very interested in the ocean (perhaps it was too loud), but he did like the beach.

He spent a lot of time throwing rocks in the "river" that drained into the ocean. And, as you can see, he boned up on the Jedi arts, learning to levitate rocks using The Force.

When leaving the beach, we budgeted around thirty minutes to get back to the Inn. It's a five minute walk, sans Anders, but the timing is quite different con Anders. I don't think it ever really took us thirty minutes, but sometimes it did take twenty.

Anders also enjoyed just running around in the yard behind the B&B.

It was a wonderful weekend, and a good way to recharge the mental reserves.